For Becky Syrowski, an English Language Development teacher in Cleveland, SIPPS has been a game-changer—especially for her older multilingual learners. Drawing on her experiences in Oakland, Chicago, and now Cleveland, Becky shares how SIPPS has equipped her to provide targeted, age-appropriate foundational skills instruction that supports her students’ rapid growth in reading.
Tell us a little about yourself, your school and district, and the students that you serve.
My name is Becky Syrowski. I am an English Language Development teacher in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District in Ohio.
I taught for 12 years in Oakland, California and one year in Chicago, Illinois and have always worked with large populations of students learning English as an additional language.
Currently, I work in a K–8 Dual Language School that serves a large population of multilingual students whose first language is Spanish. We have students from all over Mexico and Central and South America as well as students who were born and raised right here in Cleveland. Their English language levels range from emergent to advanced.
Tell us a little about your journey with using SIPPS? When did you first become trained? How did you come to use SIPPS in Cleveland?
I was first trained in using SIPPS in Oakland, California. SIPPS was implemented across the district there, and I always tell people that I didn’t know how to teach reading until I learned SIPPS! It changed my capacity as an educator, and I am forever grateful.
Before learning to use SIPPS, I didn’t know how to help my students in need of foundational skills support when I was a 4th and 5th grade classroom teacher. When I came to Cleveland and started my position as an ELD teacher, I knew that SIPPS would be essential to my students’ progress in learning to read in English, so I asked my principal if we could purchase it, and he was supportive of my request.
Since then, several educators at my school have been awarded the curriculum through SIPPS’s grant program, and we have begun a school-wide SIPPS initiative. We are seeing great progress in students’ foundational reading skills.
What do you appreciate about SIPPS as a curriculum?
I LOVE that SIPPS is an educative curriculum! It teaches you exactly what you need to know about teaching foundational skills.
I also love that there is an age-appropriate curriculum for older students that doesn’t infantilize them. This way they can work on the skills they need without feeling bored or embarrassed.
What have you noticed about your students’ learning and acceleration? If a particular story from your classroom comes to mind, please share it!
My students have made and continue to make excellent growth. Using iReady as an additional measure of growth, most students surpass their “stretch goal” in less than one semester.
One student’s success comes to mind when I think of successes with the SIPPS curriculum. A couple of years ago, I worked with a student who was reading at a Kindergarten level. After administering multiple assessments, it was clear that her language comprehension skills were advanced and that all she needed was support with word recognition.
After one year of SIPPS instruction, she increased to a 3rd grade reading level as measured by iReady. She was very proud of the growth she had made; while she had previously thought she just couldn’t read, she realized she was fully capable with the right age-appropriate instruction.
In your opinion, what is it about SIPPS that has proven especially effective for students who are learning English as an additional language?
I think what has proven especially effective for students who are learning English as an additional language is the constant review that SIPPS provides.
Students have the opportunity to practice the sounds and “sight words” they have learned in every lesson. The vowels in English can be especially challenging to master, so this repetition provides endless opportunities for practice and feedback. A lot of the vocabulary repeats throughout the lessons as well, which gives them multiple opportunities to recall the meaning of the words and commit them to memory.
How has SIPPS affected or changed your own teaching and learning?
Simply put, SIPPS has taught me how to teach reading! It has truly lifted the huge weight I felt from not knowing how to support my older students with foundational reading skills. When it comes to teaching, it has helped me to be efficient in providing my students with the age-appropriate foundational skills instruction they need. SIPPS lessons are quick and concise, allowing students to grow quickly, which is especially important for our older students.